Jerome David Kern

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Jerome David Kern

Jerome David Kern (born January 27, 1885 in New York , † November 11, 1945 ) was an American composer who wrote music for dozens of Broadway shows and Hollywood films. His best-known titles include Smoke Gets in Your Eyes , Ol 'Man River , All the Things You Are and The Way You Look Tonight .

biography

Jerome Kern was born in the Sutton Place District of New York. His parents were Jews who had emigrated from Germany to the USA. The boy had inherited the musicality from his mother Fanny, who was a piano teacher . Jerome's father, Henry, was a salaried employee but later became self-employed when the family moved to Newark, New Jersey. He dealt in furniture and pianos. Henry Kern would have liked to see his son Jerry join his business; but nothing came of it. The boy really wanted to take up a job that had to do with music.

After graduating from high school , he studied at the New York College of Music. His teachers included Alexander Lambert, Austin Pierce and Paolo Gallico. He later continued his studies in Heidelberg . In 1904 he returned to his homeland. From 1905 on he stayed in London for longer periods of time. It was there that he met Eva Leale, whom he married in 1910.

Although Kern had completed his studies with the academic degree "Master of Music", he began his musical career with subordinate work until one of the many Broadway theaters hired him as a rehearsal pianist. It was a time when numerous operettas from Europe found audience approval on Broadway. Over and over again he had to play the same melodies until the singers knew them by heart. He once made a joke by smuggling his own melody into a European operetta song. This made a director and a theater producer aware of the young talent. They liked the new, fresh melody better than the familiar one. From then on, new songs by Jerome Kern were incorporated into European operettas.

After the extravaganza “La Belle Paree” from 1911 , for which he had written the music together with Frank Tours, followed a year later his first operetta “The Red Petticoat”, composed by himself. The success was slight. The piece was discontinued after just two months. In 1914 he was commissioned to rebuild the English operetta "The Girl From Utah" for American needs and to expand it with his own songs. Now the first real success came for him. The sheet music of his song "They Didn't Believe Me", the big hit of this piece, sold millions of copies. In the following quarter of a century, Kern composed the music for 33 stage works. The most successful were " Sally " (1920) and "Sunny" (1925). More and more elements of the European-sounding operetta took a back seat in favor of elements that later became typical for the genre “Musical Comedy”.

The year 1927 brought Jerome Kern to the height of his fame: In collaboration with the librettist Oscar Hammerstein II , the world success “ Show Boat ” was created. The premiere took place on December 27, 1927 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York and was a triumphant success. For the first time in a purely American stage work, mere musical numbers were no longer strung together, but entire scenes were musically and dramatically built up several times.

In the course of the next few decades, Jerome Kern was also active as a film composer, including editing many of his musicals for the “music film” genre, which is booming in Hollywood. He received the Oscar twice in the “Best Song” category: in 1936 for “ The Way You Look Tonight ” from “ Swing Time ” and in 1941 for “ The Last Time I Saw Paris ” from “ Lady Be Good ”.

On November 5, 1945, Jerome Kern was strolling down Park Avenue in New York. He suffered a heart attack and fell unconscious on the street. He died less than a week later. The year he died he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Works (selection)

Revues

  • 1916: The Ziegfeld Follies
  • 1917: Miss
  • 1920: Hitchy-Koo

Musicals

  • 1915: cousin Lucy
  • 1917: Have A Heart
  • 1918: Oh lady, lady
  • 1919: She's a Good Fellow
  • 1920: The Night Boat
  • 1920: Sally
  • 1921: Good Morning, Dearie
  • 1923: Stepping Stones
  • 1924: Dear Sir
  • 1925: The City Chap
  • 1925: Sunny
  • 1926: Criss Cross
  • 1927: Show Boat
  • 1929: Sweet Adeline
  • 1931: The Cat and the Fiddle
  • 1932: Music in the Air
  • 1933: Roberta
  • 1939: Very Warm for May

Film music

Orchestral works

  • 1931: Scenario for Show Boat
  • 1941: Day Dreaming
  • 1942: Mark Twain Suite

Hits

literature

Web links

Commons : Jerome David Kern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Members: Jerome Kern. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 7, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Kern, Jerome David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1945
Place of death New York City